Evaluating the stability of the search tools Hotbot and Snap: a case study
Online Information ReviewPublished 1 December 2000
Judit Bar‐Ilan
Citations35
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.02
SNIP1.52
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TL;DR
These findings are to alert users of Hotbot of its instability as of October 1999, and they raise questions about the reliability of previous studies estimating the size of Hotbots based on its overlap with other search engines.
Abstract
Discusses the results of a case study in which 20 random queries were presented for ten consecutive days to Hotbot and Snap, two search tools that draw their results from the database of Inktomi. The results show huge daily fluctuations in the number of hits retrieved by Hotbot, and high stability in the hits displayed by Snap. These findings are to alert users of Hotbot of its instability as of October 1999, and they raise questions about the reliability of previous studies estimating the size of Hotbot based on its overlap with other search engines.
Keywords
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